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Poetry

Audio: Read by the author. 

 

to welcome my friend and me— 

I have friends, 
some of them welcome to some of the fields
I’d risk barbed wire for, 
some of them welcome into fields
capable of blossom.
Some wore bright folklore vests,
some simply keep blossoming themselves
on the paved sides of fences.
Some will walk through shallow springmelt with me.
Some wear hats, some bright shoes.  

To welcome them I bring two ponies, $54.13, any 
things numbering forty-two, proof that trees have heartbeats, 
a Dürer print, a nuns wimple, any monster from Bosch
the score for the Sixth Unaccompanied Cello Suite, green roses, 
the resurrected contents of the million coffins police have filled with bullets. 
I’m repeating myself. 
Repetition welcomes my friend and me.  

We will be the young tufts of spring. 
My shadow will lay itself down over yours, reader.
We will not cut ourselves open any longer.  

 

 


Devon Miller-Duggan has published poems in Rattle, Margie, Antioch Review, Massachusetts Review, and Spillway. She teaches at the University of Delaware. Her books include Pinning the Bird to the Wall (Tres Chicas), Alphabet Year, (Wipf & Stock), and The Slow Salute (Lithic Press Chapbook Competition winner). 

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